Intro: Welcome to the Spoken Gospel Podcast. Spoken Gospel is a ministry that's dedicated to speaking the gospel out of every corner of scripture. In Luke 24, Jesus told his disciples that every part of the Bible was about him. So each week, hosts David and Seth work through a passage of scripture to see how it's all about Jesus and his good news. Let's jump in.
David: Well, welcome everyone to the Spoken Gospel Podcast. Thank you so much for joining us. Seth, how are you today?
Seth: I'm doing, I'm doing well.
David: You're doing, you're doing well. You just got back from a short little vacation over Labor Day and got to go to beautiful Columbus.
Seth: Columbus, it's a great city. You went to Germantown.
David: Germantown.
Seth: It was great. I had fun. It was great. Lake, it was my wife grew up there. Oh yeah, it was great.
David: Well, that's awesome. I stayed home over Labor Day, which is also equally great, with a sick kid. So not the best, not the best. Kind of just like chilling at home, being an exile, being an exile at home.
Seth: I wish I could be an exile at home more often.
David: Oh yeah, but it's—
Seth: I don't even know what that means right now.
David: This is our— this is me fumbling into a segue into 1 Peter.
Seth: My favorite part about our segues is that we flag that we're segueing.
David: Oh, it's the best, which is the best way to segue, which is you can make all sorts of like errors as long as you flag that in a segway, that it's, it's a, it's a, it's a thing. Segway forgives a multitude of wrongs.
Seth: Self-awareness of a segway leads to—
David: have we lost our listeners yet? I hope not,
Seth: because we're in 1 Peter 2. We did our intro episode 2 weeks ago. We did our 2 Peter episode, and now we're back in 1 Peter going kind of chapter by chapter. And we kind of realized we covered all of chapter 1. Yeah, in our introduction podcast, right? If you're jumping in, you should go back there.
David: Yes, definitely. Because we set up all the major categories of the book of 1 Peter that are set up in chapter 1, namely that we are exiles on earth because we've been called out by God.
Seth: And if chapter 1 kind of gave us the negative vision of what we are, we are not at home. We are not citizens of this country. We are citizens of another. Chapter 2 really kind of fleshes out for us what it means to be that chosen nation, a separate— be a part of a separate citizenship. And that's kind of what Chapter 2 initiates for us before it gets into some of like, well, what does that mean for us as we live as exiles within a nation we're not a part of anymore?
David: That's good. I think another good thing to flag just by way of reintroduction to jog people's memories, um, is we talked about one of the most helpful ways for me to think about 1 Peter was thinking about, um, we're like Abraham, you know, like we have been called away from our families and our former allegiances and our ways of life and have cast our new citizenship into a future unknown promised land. Yep, just like Abraham was. And so we are joining Abraham in that story of walking from a place of comfort at home into a place of exile and sojourning.
Seth: But also obedience.
David: Also obedience. And the reason that's important is not just because it's like imaginatively helpful.
Seth: Mm-hmm.
David: It's also important, we talked a lot about last week, and I know we'll talk about it this week, is the importance of grafting the Gentile audience of 1 Peter, the primarily Gentile audience of 1 Peter, into the story of the Jewish people. And, um, can we— can you help me remember, like, why that was so important to do?
Seth: Well, I mean, as Peter points out, this is a story that began before the foundations of the earth. Okay. Like, both God and we have been foreknown, and God has had a plan to create a people, his own people, from all the way back then.
David: Yeah.
Seth: And for the majority of human history up to this point, that people had only included the direct lineage of Abraham. Abraham, his sons, and his daughters up to the nation of Israel. And since Jesus, that's expanded. So you have a majority of the world that has not yet been chosen.
David: Yeah.
Seth: Or has not yet had access to that in the same way.
David: They've not— to them, they've not been a part of that story from the beginning.
Seth: They have to be restored.
David: God's people, they have to be restored into something bigger than their Greco-Roman tradition, because they've been grafted in to their immediate surroundings, to their own cultures, their own gods, their own ways of life. Yeah, it's like, no, you need to exile yourself from those cultures, those gods, those ways of life into a new kingdom. You are part of this grand story I've been telling throughout the whole Old Testament.
Seth: And even just like pastorally, like we— so that's very true historically and like covenantally, like in this era of human history, but just Separate yourself 2,000 years from that. The story that I live my life by is the story of the American dream, the story of expressive individualism, the story of Moana played out for my own life. Like, well, it's so like, that's, that's the story I live in.
David: Yeah.
Seth: Um, the primary story though is not one in which I find my truest self in my heart, but the one that brings me back to something that began before the foundation of the earth that was brought to a family and like expanded to cover the planet. Like there's something better.
David: Yeah.
David: There's a bigger, better story. You're being drawn into.
Seth: Yes.
David: That's worth getting exiled from the story you grew up with.
Seth: That's exactly right.
David: Okay. That's helpful. Thank you for indulging me there. And so you said that like 1 Peter 1 kind of talks about like, okay, this is the negative side. You're not this, you're not this, you're not this. Instead, 1 Peter 2 talks about what we are.
Seth: Yes.
David: Okay. So how does it get us there?
Seth: That might be a clumsy way to set it up, but I think it does the job.
David: Thanks for calling me clumsy.
Seth: I call myself clumsy. 1 Peter 2 begins with a "so," kind of concluding the last section. So put away all malice and all deceit and all hypocrisy and all envy and all slander, which was part of your old way of living. But like newborn infants, been born into something new, long for the pure spiritual milk, which is the gospel, which is faith in Jesus, being grafted into this larger story, that you may grow up into the salvation if indeed you have trusted the Lord is good. So he's like, okay, you're being reborn into something, put away all those old things. You're a baby again. Now, like a baby, trust and eat the milk, and you will grow up and mature into this new nation and new people.
David: Okay. Okay. So this is really interesting. So, because in chapter 1, he talked about how you used to be part of these families that were controlled by sin and uncleanliness. And that was— you grew up in that. You were mature adults in that, in a sense. And now you've been called out But graphic in the story. Been holy, and now you gotta be born again. And you, you a little baby.
Seth: Mm-hmm. Little baby.
David: Little baby. And now you need to taste the pure spiritual milk. You used to survive— like, your meat and potatoes was deceit and hypocrisy and envy and slander. And now you need to wean yourself off of those things and onto a new spiritual diet.
Seth: That's right.
David: So what is this like? Pure— what's pure spiritual milk?
Seth: I think it's just the gospel.
David: You know what I thought of? What was Charles Dickens' "The Milk of Human Kindness" from Christmas Carol?
Seth: I don't know this one.
David: The Ghost of Christmas Past, I think, has him taste the milk of human kindness.
Seth: It's like a spiritual milk.
David: Yeah, it's like a spiritual milk. Anyway, so, okay, you were saying it's the gospel though, not Dickens'— not Dickens' human kindness milk.
Seth: I think it's— I think it's— I mean, he's just been talking about the imperishable word that brings life to us. So I think it's another way to say that same thing and another way to fill out the metaphor of being born again. Well, if you're born again, in what state are you once you're born again? You're an infant. You're a child.
David: Yeah.
Seth: And so what does a child grow on? Well, the good— what does a child of the kingdom grow on? The good news of the gospel. Jesus's death and resurrection, his life in place of ours, and his new way of being and living. And that's how we grow up into maturity and into salvation.
David: It is interesting. You forgive me, everyone. Forgive me, Seth. Forgive me, audience. I'm just— I'm processing this, but it's a pretty visceral metaphor that he's using here. Like, long— like babies long for pure spiritual milk.
Seth: The word is crave.
David: Yeah, he's talking about breastfeeding. Okay. And it's like, if indeed you've tasted that the Lord is good, Who's the one doing the breastfeeding here? You know, it's like the Lord.
Seth: Oh, yes.
David: He's a breastfeeding mother.
Seth: Yes.
David: Nursing us is such an intimate metaphor. I feel like that's why I had to almost apologize because it's so, so intimate. But it's just like, you know, we have a 7-month-old at home right now. You've, you've raised 3 kids. Like, we've watched our wives breastfeed. And it is this like, man, my, my wife is providing good to my child. You know what I mean? Like, yeah. And they long for it and they crave it. And then they taste that their mother is good. And it's just like to think about—
Seth: and that's how they grow up.
David: That's how they grow.
Seth: It's just how they become members of our family.
David: So interesting to think about God like that, that we desire, like, the good news of the gospel that he brings us and, and he provides it to us out of himself.
Seth: Yeah.
David: You know, the gospel is God's self-giving, just like a mom's, you know, feeding her infant is a self-giving. Anyway, I just was like kind of baffled by the rawness of that metaphor anyway.
Seth: And I mean, you could probably spend days thinking about meditating on that, but even like the idea of dependency, like the state of a citizen of the kingdom is one of dependency. Yes. On God in the same way that any citizen is dependent on their government.
David: Like we're dependent on the Lord, but not in like a serf kind of way, like where you're indentured to the empire.
Seth: He's not just, wanting obedience and bowing and allegiance. He wants to—
David: the only word I could think of was suckle. That's the word I've been trying not to use. Don't use the word suckle. Don't use the word suckle. I've been trying to avoid that word.
Seth: He invites us to something more intimate than mere allegiance. Yeah.
David: Um, you had to come and eat of him. I mean, which is another biblical term, like, you know, eat my flesh, drink my blood, Jesus would say in John 6. And it's like, this is just another way to talk about the same thing, that we are dependent upon being nourished by God.
Seth: Mm-hmm.
David: And that nourishment comes in the imperishable good news of the gospel. And it's just like— and that's like, to go meta just for a second, like, that's what Spoken Gospel's whole philosophy is, that like, we need the gospel every single day. Yeah, that— and you can— and there's 100,000 different ways to think about it because of how vast the Bible is. And just like 100,000 different ways to come to the breast of God in a sense and be nourished. It's just like such a really uncomfortable— I'm like blushing, you know?
Seth: Yeah, it's good.
David: It's here. So anyway, okay.
Seth: No, that's, that's worth it.
David: It's worth blushing over.
Seth: Okay.
David: Thank you. I'm blushing not because of the text, because my own immaturity, because I'm sure that's what's happening here.
Seth: So as you come to him, Jesus, the breastfeeding mother, he's also described as a living stone rejected by men, but in the sight of God, chosen and precious.
David: That's a difficult metaphor.
Seth: It's a difficult metaphorical switch because I'm like, yeah, yes, that.
David: Although, oh my goodness, what other time in the Bible did a stone provide liquid nourishment?
Seth: And in the, in the wilderness.
David: Yeah. And we're told elsewhere in the Bible that Jesus is that stone that was struck and that moved through the wilderness, that moved through the wilderness and provided liquid nourishment for its people. Depending on how you draw a rock, I guess it could look like a breast.
Seth: Yes. I wonder if that's what's going on. I don't know. There's such unconnected metaphors. I've been assuming that they're like—
David: they're unconnected, but this very moment—
Seth: interesting.
David: Yeah. And okay, so for, for our, for our audience who might be like, what living stone rock that follows the people in the wilderness are you talking about? Tell that story.
Seth: So Israel is in the wilderness after their disobedience to God at Mount Sinai.
David: And yes, that's where they're at.
Seth: So they're wandering the wilderness for 40 40 years, but God continues to provide for them in the wilderness. He sends the pillar of cloud, the pillar of fire, and whenever they're thirsty, there's a rock that Moses will strike and appears twice and it provides them water when there is no water in the land. And it's these moments of God's provision in the wilderness. And then Paul reflecting on that will call that rock Jesus.
David: Yeah, that's in 1 Corinthians, I think. I believe so.
Seth: And, um, he talks about a rock that's moving, moving like the moving stone.
David: Yeah.
Seth: Stones don't move unless they live, you know?
David: Right.
Seth: That's kind of, that's kind of like where our minds are going right now. So the question is, is Jesus, is he pulling on that wilderness motif? Because in that moment they were exiles. They were exiles from Egypt. They were sojourners on their way towards Israel.
David: And he's about to quote from Mount Sinai.
Seth: He's about to quote from Mount Sinai.
David: It's very interesting to think about that as like Jesus is the, the stone that provides us nourishment. I mean, that's true. 1 Corinthians. Is that what Peter has in mind?
Seth: I don't know. So my, my thought in this was that this living stone metaphor was more about the temple.
David: Yes, absolutely.
Seth: Have a whole bunch of temple language is going to come up here in a second. So maybe in my— for my own sake, is there a way that the living stone in the wilderness is connected to the temple at all? Because I mean, the pillar of fire and the pillar of cloud filled the temple, and God's water from the rock is the symbol of God's presence, as, as Paul points out. So is that living stone like a prototype of the temple?
David: Well, when the, when the tabernacle was built, those symbols kind of subsided, right? And so because they became the temple, and so yes, in a sense, the mobile provision of God stopped being these theophanic, you know, representations.
Seth: Yeah.
David: The pillar of cloud, a rock that gives water and became a physical location, the tabernacle, which would then turn into the temple. So I think they are connected in a sense, and he could be moving from one to another really quickly. Other than that, we might just be wrong.
Seth: We could be just wrong.
David: But it's an interesting thing to—
Seth: so if it's not that, yeah, and we moved to the temple, like, we know we're in the right to talk about the temple here. Because verse 5 says, you yourselves, like living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
David: What's a spiritual house where priests work that offer sacrifices?
Seth: The temple.
David: Temple. Yeah. It has to be what he's talking about.
Seth: The direction we're going. Yes. So, but what does it mean for Jesus to be a living stone rejected by men, but in the sight of God chosen and precious?
David: Well, I mean, number one, Jesus called himself the temple when he was on earth.
Seth: Okay.
David: Like he said, you know, tear this temple down.
Seth: Before we get to the temple.
David: Yep.
Seth: What's a living— like, why a living stone? Like, where does that come from within? Like, That's like— that was—
David: oh, I gotcha. Yeah. So stones. The temple was built out of stones, you know.
Seth: Right. Yeah.
David: And now that stone, particularly the chief cornerstone, the most important stone without which the entire temple would fall, has now come alive in Jesus. It used to just be a dead stone that made a dead house where living things happened. But now that stone, the cornerstone, has come alive in Jesus.
Seth: Peter's assuming a little bit of knowledge of his audience. Like, you've heard of Jesus called the living stone before. He called himself the cornerstone. And you know that he was alive. He wasn't a dead stone, but an actual person. He was a living stone. And he was rejected by men, but he was chosen and precious by God. That's— he's pulling on that tradition.
David: That's right. And there was— I think he's going to— he's going to quote part of this text. Oh, he— no, he'll quote it later where people were expecting a cornerstone that would be rejected to be the Messiah, or maybe they didn't know it was gonna be the Messiah, but it turned out being the Messiah. And so yes, he's pulling on all that knowledge. So it's like, there was this cornerstone that came alive, but everybody rejected it. But that rejected stone is actually the very thing on which God will build his temple, like, like, which I mean, you think about it is the cross of Jesus. That's his moment of ultimate rejection by man, and even in a sense by God. Elohai, Elohai lama sabachthani. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And it's like he was forsaken, rejected. And yet that cross, that moment of rejection, is the cornerstone upon which God will build the temple, the living temple.
Seth: Okay. And so you yourselves, like living stones, are being built up into a spiritual house. So the logic is, Jesus was a rejected stone who's been brought back to life. And so you too are like these resurrected newborn stones that are being built into a new temple. So the same way that Jesus was a temple in and of himself, we as members of God's new nation, new children, are also a new temple.
David: Yes. And importantly, and we'll get to it, we kind of bring, you know, verses 6 and 7 up a little bit. But Jesus is the cornerstone, like, and we are being built around him. We don't get to be temples unless we are— unless our stones lay on Jesus's stone.
Seth: Right, right.
David: And yes, as in the same way that Jesus has been resurrected as an eternally living temple of God, which we need to talk about what that means.
Seth: Yeah, yeah.
David: We too, as living priests, get to join him in that work. Okay, so we should probably pause now.
Seth: Yeah.
David: And go, what's a temple?
Seth: Yeah, I'm like, I'm all like, wait, okay, so yeah, these are interesting things. The closest I felt like understanding what a living temple was was a rock that gives water, right? Like, or a mother that's feeding her child. This is— is that like, in what sense is that a temple? And how is a temple more than that? It's kind of like where—
David: yeah, okay, so a temple is where you meet the divine. Okay, that's like the— I think the simplest way to define a temple.
Seth: Okay.
David: At least in this, you know, first century context. Temples where the gods could come and manifest, or, you know, you could enter some kind of portal and, you know, give the divine food.
Seth: Yeah.
David: You know, or offer, you know, like, that's the broader world.
Seth: Yeah. Yeah.
David: This is not— this is not necessarily Judaism. This is just the broader world of temples, which was a very commonplace thing. Is like you could go and sacrifice at the temple. And in a sense, that went up, shot up into the heavens. And now if you sacrifice a bull on earth, there's a bull before Athena.
Seth: Yeah.
David: And she now likes you, you know. And so it's like it's a place where the divine and the human can connect. And then importantly, it's also the place where that connection is facilitated by priests through sacrifices, because those are two things that, that Peter flags for us here. And so a temple is where the human and the divine can connect, facilitated by priests through sacrifice.
Seth: Okay.
David: And that, that holds true to the Old Testament temple.
Seth: And the hope is that when you meet God, when you meet the divine, you get something in return.
David: So, right? Yeah. I mean, yeah, I'd say in the broader pagan world.
Seth: Yeah.
David: Yeah.
Seth: I mean, even in the Old Testament, you don't— you come to the temple to rejoice in God.
David: Oh, sure.
Seth: Yeah.
Seth: You come to receive justice, right? You come to like, for forgiveness.
David: Yes.
Seth: Right. Like atonement.
David: Right.
Seth: Like, so even like, I mean, is it wrong to say that we come expecting something from God in the temple?
David: No.
Seth: From our meeting with him? No. I was wondering.
David: Yeah, I know.
Seth: Yeah.
David: I was thinking about like the, the peace offering, which is like the fifth of the five main offerings described at the beginning of Leviticus. And it's like that one is really about like having a picnic with God. Yeah, there's really not much quid pro quo there. You know, it's just like you sacrifice and then you eat everything yourself in God's pagan temples.
Seth: There's only quid pro quo.
David: Yes. In God's temple, there is an element of fellowship.
Seth: Yeah.
David: Which is really interesting.
Seth: Interesting.
David: So that's kind of what a temple is. And I think it's important. There's several things for us to flag that I think are really important. And understanding why this is such a big deal. The Garden of Eden was a temple. It was a garden temple. It was a place where humans and God could live together. But there was one thing particularly missing from that temple— priests and sacrifices.
Seth: Like, were Adam and Eve not meant to be priests?
David: No, they were, but different kinds. They weren't offering sacrifices, right? They were working, you know, tending the world.
Seth: Their, their work was their sacrifice.
David: But they didn't— I was— what I was saying was Adam and Eve didn't have a priest in between them and God. They were themselves the priests, tending the world, you know, living in it the way God wanted. And then all that broke. And so now humans and the divine are separated. And now you have to have priests in God's temple making sacrifices to help bridge that gap once again. Okay, well, Jesus being the incarnate temple, the place where God and divine meet, right? Because if a temple is a place where the divine and the human meet, that is perfectly represented in Jesus. He was God-man, 100% God, 100% man. Yes, he is the definition of a temple with a pulse.
Seth: Yeah. You know? Yes, I get it.
David: And so that is what it means to be Jesus being the living cornerstone temple. Is that he is the place where the divine and human meet. That's what the incarnation is.
Seth: In previous light, to be alive or to be a stone were two separate realities. Yes. You could be a stone temple or you have a living God. You couldn't have both, right? Until Jesus.
David: Yes.
Seth: Okay.
David: And so Jesus is both of those things. And he acted as our priest by making a sacrifice, but not one that needed to be made again and again and again. He made the sacrifice of himself once and for all. So now there's just a new paradigm of what temples can be because of what Jesus has done in his incarnation and on his atoning work on the cross and now in his resurrection being living forever.
Seth: Okay.
David: So he's broken pretty much every paradigm of what a temple—
Seth: right.
David: Yeah.
Seth: Okay. So that's— so there's a lot buried in living stone.
David: Oh, yeah.
Seth: I mean, even like, okay, let me just bring it back down.
David: Yeah.
Seth: Stones don't live, right? How can stones live?
David: Yes.
Seth: Unless God fills the stone. Mm.
David: Yeah.
Seth: And what you have is that happening in Jesus. You had a rock of a man, a rock of a human. And I mean, that's— I'm getting close to a heresy saying it that way, being the divineness. Yes. But the idea is that you can't have two unlike things together until Jesus.
David: Right. That's right.
Seth: It happens in Jesus.
David: It happens in Jesus. The other, like, big sweeping kind of biblical category to have in your head, and we're talking about all this, is the difference between the tabernacle and the temple is also really important. There was a feature of the tabernacle inherent in how it was built.
Seth: The tabernacle is what they did when they wandered in the wilderness.
David: That's right.
Seth: Before they built it in— that's right.
David: That— and there's something inherent about its construction that is made impossible by the stones of the temple.
Seth: There was no tents.
David: Yeah, one was mobile, the other was immobile. One could move and almost have life in it. Right, right. The other was still and could not move. And so there's that. But so I think it was the original intent— ha, intent, tent— intent of God to have a mobile temple, a living stone, which is so interesting.
Seth: Then just the idea of a living stone— if, if the moving stone of the— yeah, in the wilderness was a function of his presence, the tent was supposed to be a new way to reveal that same thing.
David: Exactly.
Seth: And one of the deficiencies of the temple as it was built in Israel, even at its height under King David, was that it couldn't move with God's people wherever they went throughout the world.
David: Right.
Seth: Right.
David: King Solomon.
Seth: Under Solomon.
David: Right. Yes. Yes. Totally. I think that's absolutely true. And so to have a temple that can move once again is a very significant, albeit disturbing truth, especially to a Jewish audience.
Seth: Yeah.
David: But to a Gentile audience, I don't know, it might seem like really good news that they're not stuck in— they don't have to be stuck to Jerusalem anymore.
Seth: Well, I mean, you said an offense to a Jewish audience. So maybe— so like, what's interesting about this, we're spending a lot of time on Jesus as the living stone. Peter will spend most of his time about us being stones.
David: Yes.
Seth: But before he goes there, he grounds everything we've been talking about in the book of Isaiah. Peter quotes Isaiah 28:16, "Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious." So we would assume the cornerstone of the temple, at least, right, from that reference. And whoever believes in him will not be put to shame, which is odd because I thought we were just talking about a temple, but now we're talking about person, right? So my guess is Isaiah is referring to maybe some promised future person would bring them out of exile.
David: Yeah. But I mean, the interesting thing is, we were— you and I were both looking at the, like, the text, the original Hebrew, and then the Greek Septuagint translation of this. And it is interesting that in the Hebrew, it's just whoever believes, not in him or in it, or whatever. Whoever believes will not be put to shame. So it was like the Hebrew left it really ambiguous. The Septuagint came along and translated it, whoever believes in him or upon him will not be put to shame. So they made it really definite, which probably meant they were expecting a future king, most likely, who was going to come bring them out of exile and restore the temple, lay the chief cornerstone again.
Seth: And what's interesting about both of those ideas is like you could read it as, well, there will be a coming stone who will also be a him.
David: Mm. Right, right.
Seth: Yeah. Which is—
Seth: oh, yes, there's a coming stone. Stone that will also be a him, which—
David: that's the point Peter's making.
Seth: That's exactly right. Through it, that he sees through it. He's making that point that he's already made a couple verses.
David: Uh, yeah, he's like, okay, let me take this really familiar text from Isaiah you guys all know and have been waiting for the fulfillment of.
Seth: Yeah.
David: Uh, it's not just someone who's going to come rebuild. It's not just the stones that are going to be used to rebuild the temple. It's not some king that's going to be, you know, be used to rebuild the temple. It's not even a messiah, a future anointed one that's going to rebuild the temple. It's all of them in one. It is a living kingstone messiah. You know, like, it's just— that's cool.
Seth: And then he quotes Isaiah— or sorry, not Isaiah, but Psalms 118:22. And the stone the builders rejected, Jesus, has become the cornerstone. Jesus is the prophesied one from, from Isaiah, who is both a living stone part of the temple who are not going to put us to shame by our belief in him. And he's died. He's been rejected. And he's a stone of stumbling, a rock of offense from Isaiah 8. And everyone is offended by him, the Jews in particular. Like, we can't have a messiah who dies, you know. We can't— or the Gentiles are— it's this foolishness. Nobody rises from the dead. Like, this is—
David: yeah, totally.
Seth: Um, so anyway, I say all that to just round out the point Peter's making here. He's like, no, Jesus is clearly the living stone prophesied throughout Scripture.
David: Totally.
Seth: And we are in like him.
David: Yeah. Or even to put a finer point on it, it's like there has been this stone prophesied throughout Scripture that would be laid again. The temple would come back, you know, there is. And then there seems to be a king who would pull it off, a messiah who would pull it off. And it's like Peter's point is amalgamating those together. And he said that's his unique contribution.
Seth: And that's Jesus.
David: Yes.
Seth: It's a big deal. Yeah. What's even crazier is that he goes one step forward, and you yourselves, like living stones. So, okay, hold on. You did a whole bunch of judo throughout the, throughout the, throughout the book of Isaiah and the Psalms to get us to realize that Jesus was a living stone.
David: Yeah.
Seth: And now you're saying we are living stones as well. Why is that a big deal?
David: Well, yeah, that's a, it's a big deal. One, because we've talked about the sacred, set-apart, unique function of the temple. It's a place where humans and the divine can be together, and they are usually, or traditionally always have been, external locations that you go to, and they are always outside of yourself. They have to be based on their function, you know, like God is out there, we're down here, and there has to be a bridge to connect us. But the, the crazy thing that, that Peter is saying is that, no, you are now the locus of God. You are now the place where human and divine connection occurs. And that's because of something like that's like very common parlance for Christians today, but is really revolutionary in the Jesus movement. And that is we are now temples of the Holy Spirit. Like the, like the, the, the presence of God that followed Israel around in the wilderness, the presence of God that filled the tabernacle whenever it was built in the wilderness, the presence of God that filled the tabernacle, the temple when Solomon built it, like that presence has now come to live in us even while we move around this world as living stones. That's why we're living stones, because we are mobile temples that actually house the presence of God.
Seth: And in the same way that God's presence came to us in Jesus, we take God's presence out into the whole world, not just Israel.
David: Yes, but the whole world. Importantly, reverting back to two other things we've said in the biblical story, one being the superiority— I would say might be overstating my case— of the tabernacle to the temple. Okay, the tabernacle was mobile, that the presence of God could move around the world in an encapsulated state. Now we get that back. We are now all mobile tabernacles carrying the presence of God with us. But then also going back to all the way to the Garden of Eden, that as, as Adam and Eve were priests in the garden, right? Yeah, they were tending the garden, growing the garden. It was supposed to take over the earth. And God's temple, like, as a place, was to spread around the earth. And so we are now part of that garden priestly work, spreading the image and presence of God around the world. By being living stones.
Seth: Yeah, it's a lot. Yes. And I was just looking at that word being built up. I was like trying to figure out, is that an organic image? Is it supposed to point us like, it's like a growing stone? Um, it looks like, it looks like a building, like a building term.
David: Yeah, because it has the, the word house in it.
Seth: What even, what's interesting there is even like, even as you're talking about the difference between the tabernacle and the temple, uh, we are moving temple. We're moving stone. Like, it's like it's taking the permanence and the power of a permanent stone-built temple with the flexibility and the mobility of the tabernacle. It's like you don't have to choose, you get both in Jesus. Yeah, you know, good.
David: Uh, it's really good. There's also something really interesting too about if we were— if we're comparing like the temple of the past to what, what's happening now that the Holy Spirit is filling people. Is that there's, there's one major thing that the temple could never do in Jerusalem, and that was replicate. Like, there could only be one.
Seth: Yeah.
David: And like, there were laws in the, in the, in the Torah about only being— there's only one place that you can go where the temple of God is. And now it's replicable, like, and it's replicable through this new spiritual birth that's happening. As new infants of God are popping up, new, new tabernacles are being built everywhere. It's just like, yeah, that is— there's an organic creativity that's being born out of the imperishable seed from 1 Peter 1 and is bearing fruit all over the earth. And that's what Jesus talked about when he talked about how the kingdom of God operates, you know.
Seth: And what better news than the divine coming to the entire world through everybody who believes in him.
David: Yeah, right.
Seth: It's like the good news is the temple is everywhere. Everyone has access to the divine through Jesus and those who believe in Jesus. Anyone who trusts the one stone becomes part of a new stone, and everyone can come to the Lord.
David: Yes.
Seth: Which I think is interesting, maybe as we transition, is we asked at the beginning, like, what does a temple do? Peter gives us two things that temples do here in a second. They proclaim the excellencies of the one who brought us out of darkness into the marvelous light, and they, um, abstain from the passions of the flesh.
David: It's a holy place.
Seth: It's a holy place. They live differently, um, as a way for evil people to glorify God when he returns. Yes. What's the temple supposed to do in Peter's imagination? Is to proclaim the goodness of God and to see people come to know God for the first time.
David: Right.
Seth: And that's what the temple did in one sense. Like, the temple definitely was supposed to proclaim the goodness of God, the forgiveness offered in God. Yes.
David: The smoke went up continually from the site of the temple to always show that, like, God is good, God is accepting sacrifices, God is present, he hears prayers, and that salvation was available in the God of Israel.
Seth: Mm-hmm. Anybody would— even foreigners were welcome to the temple. Sacrifices could be made on their behalf. Salvation was still there. But you had to go to the temple. Yeah. Now the salvation and the good news of God is available everywhere, through all people, through all time.
David: Right.
Seth: Depending on your relationship with Jesus.
David: Which is why we're not only called temples, we're called priests. Right. He says, right, we are a priesthood, a holy priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices. And so it's like we get to go out into the world as priests of the new temple that we are inviting and interceding for people to come to God.
Seth: Yeah.
David: Like, that's what evangelism is, you know? It's just being a temple out in the, out in the public sphere, being a priest. And then you also said something about the holy place of God, which I think is really interesting, particularly because I'm like obsessed with the idea of holiness in Leviticus.
Seth: Yeah.
David: Because I kind of had to get to be to even remotely try to understand it. And, you know, like there was this idea that the holiness of the temple, like it's like the thickness of curtains increasing the closer you get to God, the preciousness of metals starting with bronze and ending on with gold on gold as you get in the different colors, the different ornaments. Yeah, all the different things you had to pass through and do to get there. It just got scarier and more exclusive the deeper into the temple you got. And the point of that was to show how set apart, how holy, how pure God is. And it's interesting to think about that in the context of 1 Peter, because we as holy people that were so set apart that we look so different, or at least we're supposed to, from the world around us, that it, it like scares you a little bit, you know, that it proclaims a message about God, just like having a holy, untouchable place in the middle of your city would have, where it's just like everywhere you go, there's like this symbol of holiness. Like, God is so big and utterly different, and now we get to be that representation to the world. It's just a different way to think about moral commands. Yeah. In the, in the New Testament, it's like, well, I have to do X, Y, Z moral command because God told me to, or because it's the right thing to do, or because the Christian thing to do. It's like, no, it's because I am the Holy of Holies, gold on gold, thick curtain, ornamented center of God's presence here in the world. And my holiness changes the way that people see God around me. Yeah.
Seth: Anyway, he just called it— it just will be called precious people of God's precious possession. Or, you know, in 2:7, one thing I was thinking about this, the broader context of what's happening in 1 Peter is that these people are in exile and being persecuted for their faith, right?
David: Right.
Seth: And their Christian ethical code and their belief in Jesus is precisely what's causing them— yes, their ostracization. So what's interesting is the way that he says, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame, as in acting like priests we actually reverse the shame that we feel in the world around them. In fact, as Peter says in a second, evildoers will come to glorify God in the day of visitation. And in just a second, when we get into chapter 3, it'll say, um, that as we are— oh yeah, we will put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. So there's actually something, um, redemptive about our good works and being like priests as we believe in God, as we proclaim his name, as we act like a holy people, our shame is reversed. Yeah. Ignorance is pushed back. Darkness becomes light again. Evil becomes followers of Jesus.
David: Yeah.
Seth: There's something like active that happens to the world around us.
David: Yeah.
Seth: As we act like the exiles we're supposed to be.
David: Okay. So super nerd moment.
Seth: Okay.
David: Because I love what you just said. So there's a, there's a, there's a part of the temple's holiness in Leviticus that is called communicable holiness.
Seth: Right.
David: And it is this thing that happens only one or two times in Leviticus where a holy vessel that has holy water in it spills on something common.
Seth: Okay.
David: And now that common thing, like a shirt that it spilled on, becomes holy. And the community, like the, the the— yeah, it's just like holiness is communicable. It is transferable. And it's like, that's already a category in the Jewish mind in how they think about the temple is you go, you go to the temple to get holy. You know, like, that's where I go to get some holiness.
Seth: Yeah.
David: And it's like, now that's what you're saying is we are now the bringers of holiness. We clean up the world as we go through it. And we can communicate transfer holiness as priests to the world.
Seth: It goes back to the garden. This was the design of the garden. We were meant to, in the very beginning, be partners with God in creation and new creation to spread his glory and goodness and peace and holiness throughout the whole world. That's the way we're built for. Mm-hmm.
David: That's why we're here.
Seth: And now in Jesus, we can be those new partners with God again, right? Reversing the evil that happened after the fall.
David: Mm-hmm. Okay, that's all amazing. I love that. So now we're going to switch as we go into verse 9 from the driving metaphor of temple into a driving metaphor really of like people. And so verse 9 says, uh, you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own possession. So those are 4 really important things that we've been told that we are and where they come from.
Seth: Exodus 19 is a very important thing.
David: So Exodus 19 is— I like to call it like the giving of the vows before the wedding ceremony. So Israel has been brought out of Egypt.
Seth: Your vows before the wedding ceremony or it's before the—
David: what you do before the exchanging of rings.
Seth: Yes. Yes.
David: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just did it. We did it.
Seth: We did our vows, you know, in the parking lot. And then we had to—
David: it just expedited the whole situation. And so, yeah, it's the giving of vows before the exchanging of rings, before the I do and the kiss, you know. And so Egypt has— or, oh my goodness, Israel has been brought out of Egypt. They've made it to Mount Sinai where God has called them to come. And he pronounces something over them. And he says that they are going to be his chosen race, his royal priesthood, his holy nation, and his special possession. And that is the catalytic vow of God to Israel that defines the story of the rest of the Bible. And now he's saying that distinct, crazy vow, you know, you only give a vow to one, one person, your wife, your husband.
Seth: You only get married to one person. Yeah.
David: And he's saying like, I made that vow to you, like Gentile audience. However many thousand years later.
Seth: Yeah.
David: Is like a crazy statement that we've now been grafted into this fourfold vow of God.
Seth: Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Which I think that all that's from Exodus, right? All that language.
David: Yeah, probably.
Seth: Uh, we should somebody else do a check on that. Like that does not seem new.
David: No, it doesn't.
Seth: To Peter in this moment.
David: Yes.
Seth: To me. Um, but I'm just like recontextualizing that. That makes sense for Israel. Israel, you were once not a people, but now you've become a nation by my vows of marriage. You had once been treated mercilessly by Pharaoh, but now you've received mercy.
David: Totally.
Seth: Uh, but for that to be reappropriated for a Gentile audience is like, it's really, it's really profound.
David: It might be cool just briefly No, I don't want to do like humongous expositions on all 4 of these, but it's—
Seth: it—
David: they're all 4 very marvelous statements, uh, that you are a chosen race. You know, like, what does that mean? You know, like, out of all the people of the earth, I've chosen you that to be a new race of people, no matter where you come from. Yeah, you know, no matter what your ethnic race is, it could be anything. You're a new people, your new people, because you're now spiritual infants that have been reborn and you're getting new spiritual milk to become a new race of people on the earth.
Seth: Okay.
David: Which are Christians.
Seth: Yeah.
David: Being indwelt people and like, that's you. So it designates our set-apartness, you know, among the earth, but also our chosenness.
Seth: Kind of makes me think the way that you're talking about it doesn't make me think of race so much as like family. Like, yes, chosen family.
David: I think that's a great way to put it.
Seth: Yeah.
David: People, nation. Oh, it's genos. Not that that means anything to everybody listening.
Seth: It means a born one.
David: A born one. Yeah.
Seth: You're a family of people. A chosen family.
David: A chosen people.
Seth: Yeah.
David: And chosen family.
Seth: Yeah.
David: And so, and then you're a royal priesthood is the second one. And that one's really interesting for so many reasons.
Seth: Yeah. But probably the shortest is just go back to the Garden of Eden. You had a king and a queen who was supposed to be God's priests.
David: Yes.
Seth: You are now that. You are now that. Nailed it.
David: Yeah. And there's also like, oh, we're inherit— we're co-heirs with the King of Kings. Yeah, there was probably some Melchizedek thing in here with—
Seth: why not throw him on?
David: Why not throw him in there?
Seth: We're talking about the temple. Why not throw Melchizedek on in?
David: So excited for Hebrews. Royal priesthood, a holy nation. So, you know, this is like you're a set-apart country. Mm-hmm. You've been called out of the allegiances to your former citizenships and into a set-apart citizenship. In God's nation. And then I love this, like, God's special possession or a people for his own possession that, like, God wants to own you in a sense, in a special way that, like— but I think it just goes down to, like, what he said in Exodus 19. And then he repeats in Revelation 21 that I am your God, you are my people. And it's reflexive in that, that, like, Insofar as God has us, we have God. Insofar as God possesses us, we possess him in a sense. It's just a special relationship.
Seth: I also keep thinking about these words— chosen, royal, holy, own possession— as just different ways to say the word exile. To be God's chosen family is to no longer be the family that you were once part of.
David: Yes.
Seth: To be a royal priesthood is to be above and beyond the priesthood that you've seen before. To be a set-apart nation, a holy nation, is to be Unlike the nations that you're in right now.
David: Yep.
Seth: To be a people of God's possessions.
David: Because you're not possessed anymore by another nationality.
Seth: So it's like, they're all like other ways to say exile.
David: Yeah.
Seth: Chosen family, royal priesthood, holy nation, a people of God's own possession. You're not the same anymore. You're not at home where you used to be. You're part of a different family, a different priesthood, a different country. You belong to someone else. Yeah.
David: And that makes me think of like two things right away. Like, first my legalistic brain kind of did the same thing it did last time we were talking about being exiles, is like, man, am I living like a radical enough life to match this chosen royal, holy, special possessed people? Like, I just feel almost ashamed that I don't, I don't live that kind of radical Christian life like I'm supposed to. Um, but instead I'm immediately rebuked by the next like sentence out of Peter's pen. Which is telling me what I came from and then what I'm being called into. That what I used— the people I used to be a part of, the priesthoods I used to submit to, the nation I used to be a citizen of, the, like, the place by which I used to be possessed was darkness. Like, all of that was darkness.
Seth: And you're underselling that transfer, right? Yeah. From one side, whenever you say, I live in a radical life for Jesus, like, do you not understand what happened to you?
David: Yeah, it's like the radical transfer has begun already. And it's that you lived in darkness. And now you live in marvelous light. And beyond that, you don't only live in one, having been redeemed from the other, you are now an active participant in proclaiming the excellencies of that marvelous light in which you now inhabit and the utter, like, meaninglessness of the darkness from which you've been redeemed.
Seth: Yeah.
David: So it was like, oh, that's really beautiful.
Seth: That's really beautiful.
David: Thanks, God.
Seth: That's really beautiful.
David: Yeah.
David: So anyway, what are you thinking?
Seth: I'm thinking about closing out the show.
David: Great. And we—
Seth: I mentioned this already, but like when Peter's landing the plane here, and he's about to move on into this section just called Submission to Authority in my Bible. And he talks about the way exiles live in their different relationships. How does an exile, a member of a different nation, live in the nation that he's currently in? What does a Christian citizen do with his unbelieving king?
David: Mm-hmm.
Seth: What does a Christian slave do to his unbelieving master? How does he act towards him? There's a Christian wife do to her non-believing husband? Yeah. Um, and before he gets to all that, he tells us what it looks like in two really simple things. Proclaim the good news of the one who brought you out of darkness and into light, and don't act like the world around you. Yeah. And in, and in doing so, the world will be changed.
David: Yeah.
Seth: It's like, it's, it's like I wanted to land on that again because it's pretty simple. It's like, well, am I living a radical enough life? Hey, hey, don't undersell what it took to get you where you are right now.
David: You were—
Seth: you might have just been a 4th grader, but that was still a pretty big deal to immigrate from the country of darkness to the country of light. But also, man, talk about the gospel. Talk about what God has done to you and live like it's true, right? Don't act like the world. Act like a citizen of heaven. And because of your conduct among the Gentiles, because of your word and because of the way that you're acting, they will see your good deeds and glorify the God, God on the day he returns.
David: Yeah, that's really helpful because I'm like the whole like, am I living a radical enough life to have been this holy priest, exiled, royal, whatever thing? Uh, it's like, oh, I'm not. It's not that I've, uh, I need to oversell what it means to be that. What I need to realize is I've undersold what simple holiness is.
Seth: Yes.
David: Is that like, man, when I just don't partake in the sins of the world around me, like I'm married to one woman and we waited till marriage.
Seth: Yeah.
David: And I've not fornicated. And, you know, like, yeah, all those things that is pushing back the darkness like that is being a priest in this world. And that is radical. Like, and it's like, I think I've, I've kind of let Satan win some battles in letting me think that that's like the basic mundane requirements for Christianity.
Seth: Yeah.
David: And it's like, and he's robbing me of the joy.
Seth: Yeah.
David: Of the mission of God that's on my life.
Seth: Yeah.
David: In my monogamy.
Seth: Yeah. You know, like, that's how the divine and human meet.
David: Yes.
Seth: That's— if you're a living priest, when you obey God in a pagan world, you're being the conduit, the go-between, between unbelieving world and the very presence of God in your obedience and proclamation.
David: I mean, I literally had this experience, um, last weekend. I was talking to someone, um, and they're going through a really rough time, especially with, like, sexuality.
Seth: Yeah.
David: And they were in our home. Me and, me and my wife were sitting on the couch. They were sitting on the couch with us and they were just sharing how Megan and I's marriage has called them in, like, into a desire to escape the, like, bondage to sexual sin that they feel. And they're like, what you have is just right and I want to be in it. And so I'm going to start seeking God to, like, yeah, like, find that. Yeah, I was like, I'm being a priest. Like, I didn't even know I was doing anything. I was just being married, you know, and like trying to love my wife well and serve her and, you know, like, anyway, that's—
Seth: no, that's really good.
David: It's like, that's helpful.
Seth: We should talk about that next week.
David: Yeah.
Seth: Whenever we get into all the commands that we're talking about, like how do you live as an exiled wife?
David: Yeah.
Seth: Servant, slave, and citizen. Yeah, that's really— that's a really powerful example. And this goes to show like simple obedience, priestly obedience is good news to a watching world.
David: Yeah.
David: So living temples listening, go and walk around like giant stones, giving water to people or whatever metaphor you want to grab onto from breastfeeding mom, whatever you need. Got lots of metaphors in this episode. So yeah, it would be really interesting to talk about submission to authority in 1 Peter.
Seth: And just think about that when Peter sum— is summing up what does it mean to be a Christian exile? Submission. Was not expecting that term, Peter.
David: Seriously. So I think that'll be an interesting thing for us to talk about next week. So we will see you guys there.
Outro: Thank you for listening to the Spoken Gospel Podcast. Spoken Gospel creates short films, devotionals, and podcasts like this one. Everything we make is free because of generous supporters like you. To see our resources, visit SpokenGospel.com or subscribe to our YouTube channel. Thanks for listening. See you next week.
